


Cat's Eye

by AvantGardener



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch, Blackwatch (Overwatch) - Freeform, Character Death, Character Study, Deterioration, Double Agents, Dreams, Duality, Emotional Manipulation, Experimentation, Explicit Language, Frankenstein - Freeform, Heterochromia, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Internal Conflict, Internalized Misogyny, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Procedures, Mental Exhaustion, Overwatch HQ, Post-Fall of Overwatch, Post-Talon Widowmaker | Amélie Lacroix, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Pre-Talon Widowmaker | Amélie Lacroix, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Rialto, Sabotage, Team Talon (Overwatch), Torture, Watchpoint: Gibraltar, Watchpoint: Grand Mesa, emotional!moira, stolen!mercy gear, stolen!overwatch gear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 07:31:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14666307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvantGardener/pseuds/AvantGardener
Summary: Moira relives exactly how Overwatch crumbles, and why she is ultimately the reason.





	Cat's Eye

As the sun sets, we all stepped on to the plane, grimness in the air. I don't think much is to be said for the journey, for how silent it was. A pin could be dropped, and everyone on board would leer at for a second, and then return to their mundane ponderations. For the most part, McCree would try to form an aggregate of small talk, to which Gabriel would shirk with a grunt or some other raucous form of post-verbal communication.

As for the cyborg, well, to say I had incomplete knowledge of the length of his vocabulary was among the less harsh statements I could make. I don't consider myself a woman spooked easily, but the man commanded his mystery. I stumble on my words when his eyes even brush over mine.   
I brought some of my old novels on board, hoping to prey upon some nostalgic remnant from early childhood before I irreversibly killed it. I thumbed through the tattered pages, annotated despite my inexorable distaste for the study of literature. 'Frankenstein' was the only one I even bothered to pick up, with it's golden bordered pages and dog ears. I had a reverence for the text, especially after my father nurtured a love for science in me. I kindled a feeling of warmth at the familiar text.

"Doin' a bit of light readin', eh Doc?"

I looked up from her novel at McCree, grinning impishly at me. I sighed, harrumphed even. Jesse remained to be a nuisance, but to him she assumed he enjoyed the act of conversation. Above anything, McCree loved to think he was persuasive. He’d take up a coaxing tone, try to cajole some minute bit of my personal life, try to peruse through spoken communication some dalliance or other juicy detail, but I delighted in snapping right back with a cold front.

"Jesse, Frankenstein is not light, it’s featherweight.”

Jesse frowned, feigning inferiority. Jesse never fails to disappoint. I had read his file, spent countless hours recuperating the fiendish man. I was greatly exhorted upon by Gabriel that McCree was some great seducer. He has yet to live up to his notoriety.

“Don’t get cocky; I ain’t much of a reader myself.”

I looked back down at my book, and finished the tedious bits of this sloppy divergence. McCree’s idle banter was drawing my patience wire thin.

“It wouldn’t take a visionary to glean that information. Entertain yourself elsewhere.”

“Moira, I’m sure you don’t need a fancy science degree to realize we’re on a plane.”

“Take a parachute and jump. The horizon’s just grand this time of dusk.”

While Jesse scratched his head, I did smile a bit, perhaps fraudulent looking to McCree but nonetheless, a smile. I forced the corners of my lips down to a flat line, and continued reading my passage, self-consciousness plaguing my innermost thoughts.

I gazed outside, shutting my novel and witnessing the last escaping bits of sunlight. 

I was not aesthetically inclined. This was not to say that I had no eye for beauty, I spent numerous hours in art galleries, thumbing through fashion magazines, and appreciating other pleasurable visages. That was exactly the problem; I was nothing more than an appreciator. I was no clod; My face was a dog’s breakfast made of human anatomy. 

Despite my facade of cold steel, it pained me to admit to it. I did not need the harsh opinions of peers and colleagues, but they came like a horrendous onslaught of pain anyways. I suppose it is pointless now to muse over the lasting effects of the bullying, but at times, I allowed the flippancy of my pain. Very early I recognized its potential for motivation.

I could hear the jet grazing the roof of the building it’s pilot had chosen to land on, and I slid on my gloves, along with slightly adjusting my biotic and necrotic apparatus. Once they were sufficiently examined, I slicked back my hair, and pulled the beret over it. As the drop doors opened, we all slinked out into the night. The moon looms overhead in place of the sun, a harlequin’s mask for the dusky glow it once held.

{~/~\~}

The building was much darker with all of the lights off. The pillars only faintly reflected light, so they came off as much taller and undoubtedly to the rest of the squadron more menacing. The table, which mostly served to house meetings for Talon operatives and heads of the organization, now resembled an operating table. 

Gabriel was making no formality about being quiet now; stomping up the stairs, shotguns in hand, he knew he had Antonio cornered. For the second time tonight, I smiled, this time unimpeded. 

Gabriel pulled open the doors, revealing the businessman, a stocky man kept inside of a three piece, like a wild animal tied down. Antonio’s hands were tucked behind his back, gazing out into the skyline, his jawline just as domineering as his presence.

Gabriel moved directly behind him, and Genji and McCree flanked his right and left. I moved back to watch the door, as Antonio looked out over the city. A wicked smile painted on his face at my movement to shut the doors. I steady my breath, and observe, watching like I am a spectator at the arena.

“Good Evening, Commander Reyes.”

Immediately Gabriel’s eyes flashed, a tell of his immediate confusion. Antonio is no fool and as a highly established member of the Talon Organization, I could see his face light up in disapproval at the tone, Antonio grinning like a child with candy at Reyes’s confounded expression

Antonio was too smug in his demeanor, his hands folded together like origami, teeth sinister beneath his lips. Something wrong was happening here. At least Gabriel thought so. 

“How would this look on the news? Overwatch unlawfully abducting a respected businessman? Even if you take me now, my friends would have me released within the week. All these, theatrics, have been a waste of our time.”   
In a rare of moment of clarity, Gabriel dropped his shield of cynicism and flared emotion, lowering his face to look towards the ground. His face is then unreadable, chuckling as his eyes dart to the floor, and then back to Antonio. I could not tell if it was defeat, or maybe even amusement. Frankly, I was unsure of Reyes’ state of mind in that moment. My eyes carefully looking for any kind of tell or sign to his mind. I could find nothing.

“You’re right.”

Reyes fired his shotgun; a harsh pang of sound that crawled beneath my skin. The round sent Antonio through the glass and down onto the pavement. I did not see, but rather hear, the dead body skitter and sink into the bay. I shuddered, the goosebumps on my skin pushing against the harsh metallic enamel of my suit.

It did not take much longer after the fact for the shrill beacon to sound, but the Blackwatch department stood listless despite it’s cacophony, McCree in abject horror, Genji in shock. Reyes stood like a crumbling tower, his posture slouched and his eyes rushing back and forth.

When the doors opened again, the ops team was in a particularly different state of mind then when they had entered. Genji’s shoulder’s had stooped, eyes directed downward. For a moment, I was tempted to inquire upon his wellbeing, he seemed to be the only one of us that has taken any kind of remorse in the actions at hand.   
Reyes was fuming, literally, ashen colored vapors radiating off of his body. McCree was screaming his head off about the morality of it all, ill-advised on a stealth mission, but given the carcass with the shotgun round outside, a mass of dead tissue in his watery grave, I’d say he has some leeway insofar as broken rules.  
“What have you done, Gabe? What have you done!” McCree was a flailing tempest of arms and flushed skin, and Gabriel met it with a cold stare. My back straightened subconsciously. The stimuli of which was a man who was portrayed a stone cold stiffness I’d not seen of him prior. 

“I took matters into our hands. Don’t be coy, Jesse. You know no action would be taken, he’d get off scot free and we’d be sent after him again.” 

“That’s not a snap decision you can just make, Gabe. If the plan was to kill him, then we need to know. All of our lives are now in grave danger, ‘cause you got trigger happy.”  
“Things change, Jesse. “  
Genji chuckles, softly enough not to arouse suspicion from the other two, but my ears perk up like a dog at the reaction. I’d never thought it particularly sensible to seek out inebriation, but the present company brought out a side in me that I had little experience with. If I weren’t so petrified, I’d be fascinated. He inspired apprehension.

Genji moves to the front of the room, to set the charge on the door, and McCree can’t seem to look at Gabriel. Normally, this would arouse an irrational emotion in the man; Gabriel Reyes is an man ravaged by frequent emotional torrent. Instead he stares at me with a fixed expression. I stare back, masking fear with inattentiveness. I’m not a religious woman, but I pray he forgives me for what I’ve done.

Glass shattered as Talon forces fall from the ceiling onto the area surrounding the table, guns aimed as they slid down their cables. Genji’s eyes narrowed, and the garbage fire was lit.

A Talon soldier fired a gun at McCree, but he’d been moving before the man fired. Mccree flicked his wrist with the fire of his gun, smoking pouring out of the barrel. The opalescent armored man falls backward, red splashing bright and fast. Reyes pulled his shotguns up to fire when a bullet nestled itself in the space of his ribcage. There is a gruff yelp as he fires his guns, falling to the floor, nursing his wound, back to the incline of the stairs. One of the Talon Soldiers pushed the gun away in time, and remained mostly intact. Given the gush of pulp and blood spilling forth onto the floor, my guess is the second soldier was not as lucky.

Genji sliced a soldier open like buttered bread, covering me as I rushed to Gabriel. One of the men moves to shoot, but McCree fired faster. I kneeled at Gabriel’s body, and extracted the bullet with a pair of forceps, forcefully and without necessary caution. Gabriel haggardly breathes in. I push down the small handheld lever on my biotic applicator, and it sprays a viscous biotic cloud onto his wound. Gabriel breathes out. A talon soldier has spotted me working, and my eyes take a second to refocus, and I urged Gabriel to keep breathing. Breath in. I can hear footsteps behind me as I continue urging the usually fatal wound closed with the spray. The footsteps get closer. Breathe out. My nerves shatter and reassemble in pure panic as the wound is sanitized, and quickly cauterized. The footsteps are so close, the man must be right behind me. I know that I do not possess the reaction time necessary to deal with the situation. The gun rises behind my back. Breathe in.

Reyes, like lightning, snaps his eyes open and brings his arm up, tossing me to the side, and fires the shotgun into the man’s chest. I look into Gabriel’s eyes, expecting to see gratitude, or fear, something to latch onto, to keep me from capsizing.   
Instead I see nothing but betrayal. 

Breathe out. 

As the Talon forces clear out, I keep stealing glances at Reyes, trying to understand, not so much as why but how, and exactly how much he’d found out. His face emotionless, eyes pellucid, and darting around. 

As the charge sounded, we all took cover behind the table in the center of the room. The charge sounded remarkably similar to the sound of a tightly sealed jar opening, a slick “pop.” The ring of metal collided with cobbled walkway with a thud, and all hell broke loose.

Talon soldiers poured into the front, like an organized front instead of the typical guerilla approach. Their loss. A barrage of buckshot, ninja stars, and gunfire meets their march, and Talon bodies fall faster than they can walk in. The group moves through the door, still hot from the charge. 

“Commander, with all due respect, we had a plan.”  
My body assumes way more control than I had allowed it as a shaken and defensive response sounds.  
“Commander, don’t listen to McCree. Don’t apologize for a simple solution to a heavily convoluted problem. I believe your solution is the right one. Never apologize”  
McCree looks angry, but Genji is ultimately the one who answers.  
“I did not think you would agree with straying from protocol, Moira.”  
“Perhaps a new methodology is required.”  
Gabriel smiled, softly, and I felt a pang of relief, a metal weight off of my chest.

We walk out, trying to get a rendezvous point. Amari is screaming our ears off collectively, but Reyes breaks his communicator to silence the harridan and she gets so frustrated she can’t continue. I glance over at McCree, who is not calm so much as defeated. I feel an inkling of sorrow for the boy. I remember the feeling of losing the man you looked up to, and Jesse undoubtedly looked up to Gabriel. For support, for inspiration, only for it to be met with disappointment.  
Fighting through small clusters of Talon soldiers, Genji rushing forth to face them head on like some terrible demon, and McCree and Reyes flank his right and left respectively. They are so practised, so synchronized, it leaves little room for me to do much other than off an unsuspecting scraggler, or heal a small laceration. Ultimately, this left me to work on what I came here for; Reyes.

Reyes’ posture could be considered graceful if it weren’t so gruff. His steps were harsh, his eyes sunk in, and his body corded with muscle. His mannerisms lately have indicated in increase in testosterone, symptoms included with harsher temperament, increase in muscle body mass and increase in libido. His eyes have taken a particularly interesting shade of dark, like the melanin in his iris has gone black. It’s a wonder that the man can even see. I’d have to run a few tests to check with the state of his vision.

Reyes turned to meet my gaze, and to not feel like a fool for staring, I start speaking.

“How are you feeling, Gabriel?”

His head cocked to the side, as if he was trying to gain some advantage, or if he was trying to identify my game. Ironically, the one time he tried to hyper-analyze a statement of mine, I meant what I said without outlying intent. 

“I’m fine. A little hungry, Doc.”

I couldn’t help but think of this is a negativity to his newfound condition.

“Perhaps a side effect of the reagent. When we get back to the lab, I’ll run some tests.”

Gabriel sighed, his shoulders slouching, and his eyes gravitating to the skyline, perhaps like he’d need some divine help being held back.

“It’s a joke, Moira.”

I could not see through whether or not his mood was ill-intended. I cannot imagine a world without Gabriel, not romantically but rather that he is such a strong presence that the world would feel less than without it. Lately, I had lost that feeling, and perhaps for good reason. 

When he walked away, I wanted to make the world stop.


End file.
